ross, an msnbc mid-east diplomacy analyst. ambassador, great to have you here. you are no stranger to the peace process and helped broker the '95 west barveg gaza strip between israel and palestine. in your estimation, what kind of impetus can kerry bring to the restart that former secretary of states have not been able to convey? >> well, i think we are clearly in a difficult time because there's such a high level of disbelief and even cynicism about the process. so i think merely trying to resume talks while it's an important objective, it may be even a more important objective to see if you can create a set of ground rules for those talks. which you don't want to do is resume the talks and then have them crash again. what you do want to do is try to ensure that you've created enough common ground so if you begin the talks, you have a reason, a, to sustain them. b, you can demonstrate something has changed because of that. we're in the 27th year since it began, the moment at the white house with yasser arafat. that's one of